Spotlight on … Jun’ichirō Tanizaki In Praise of Shadows (1934)

 

‘The 1933 gem In Praise of Shadows by Japanese literary titan Junichiro Tanizaki examines the singular standards of Japanese aesthetics and their stark contrast — even starker today, almost a century later — with the value systems of the industrialized West. At the heart of this philosophy is a fundamental cultural polarity. Unlike the Western conception of beauty — a stylized fantasy constructed by airbrushing reality into a narrow and illusory ideal of perfection — the zenith of Japanese aesthetics is deeply rooted in the glorious imperfection of the present moment and its relationship to the realities of the past.

‘One of the most enchanting celebrations of shadows is manifested in the Japanese relationship with materials. Tanizaki writes:

Japanese paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose… Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a first snowfall. It gives off no sound when it is crumpled or folded, it is quiet and pliant to the touch as the leaf of a tree.

‘Embedded in Tanizaki’s lament about how Western innovations have infiltrated Japan’s traditional use of materials is a reminder that every technology is essentially a technology of thought. He considers the broader implications of material progress based on assimilation and imitation.

‘Although Tanizaki is writing at a time when a new wave of polymers was sweeping the industrialized West, he paints a subtler and more important contrast than that between the Western cult of synthetics and the Japanese preference for organic materials. This elegant osmosis of art and shadow, he argues, is to be found not only in what materials are used, but in how they are being used:

Wood finished in glistening black lacquer is the very best; but even unfinished wood, as it darkens and the grain grows more subtle with the years, acquires an inexplicable power to calm and sooth.

‘This temporal continuity of beauty, a counterpoint to the West’s neophilia, is central to Japanese aesthetics. Rather than fetishizing the new and shiny, the Japanese sensibility embraces the living legacy embedded in objects that have been used and loved for generations, seeing the process of aging as something that amplifies rather than muting the material’s inherent splendor. Luster becomes not an attractive quality but a symbol of shallowness, a vacant lack of history.

‘Indeed, he argues that excessive illumination is the most atrocious assault on beauty in the West. A mere half-century after Edison’s electric light shocked American cities with its ghastly glare, Tanizaki contemplates this particularly lamentable manifestation of our pathological Western tendency to turn something beneficial into something excessive.

‘But Tanizaki’s eulogy to this setting world of shadows transcends the realm of material aesthetics and touches on the conceptual sensibility of modern life in a way doubly relevant today, nearly a century later, as we struggle to maintain a sense of mystery in the age of knowledge. He remarks in the closing pages:

I have written all this because I have thought that there might still be somewhere, possibly in literature or the arts, where something could be saved. I would call back at least for literature this world of shadows we are losing. In the mansion called literature I would have the eaves deep and the walls dark, I would push back into the shadows the things that come forward too clearly, I would strip away the useless decoration… Perhaps we may be allowed at least one mansion where we can turn off the electric lights and see what it is like without them.

‘Like its subject, In Praise of Shadows derives its splendor from smallness and subtlety, distilling centuries of wisdom and bridging thousands of miles of cultural divide in an essay-length miracle of a book.’ — Brain Pickings

 

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Gallery

Junichiro Tanizaki as a boy (1913)

Haruo Sato (left) and Junichiro Tanizaki in Wakayama Prefecture in 1930

Junichiro Tanizaki’s home in Kyoto

The keys to the secret sex room in Junichiro Tanizaki’s home.

Junichiro Tanizaki’s handwriting

Junichiro Tanizaki’s grave

 

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Further

Jun’ichirō Tanizaki @ Wikipedia
Sexual obsession stimulated Junichiro Tanizaki’s writing
Jun’ichirō Tanizaki @ goodreads
Rereadings: In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
The Indicator: In Praise of Shadows
Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, The Key
Fatal Attractions
Podcast: Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, l’emprise des sens
//HOME//BOOKS//REVIEWS//POP PAST//JUNICHIRO TANIZAKI Junichiro Tanizaki’s ‘Naomi’ Than Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’
Podcast: Underappreciated: Junichiro Tanizaki
Junichiro Tanizaki, the Greatest Epic Novelist You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
La perversa sensualidad contenida de Tanizaki
STAR-CROSSED: TANIZAKI, MURASAKI, PROUST
La confession impudique de Junichiro Tanizaki

 

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Extras

The house of Junichiro Tanizaki

junichiro tanizaki lemprise des sens 1886 1965 une vie une oeuvre

Trailer: Kon Ichikawa’s film adapatuon of Tanizaki’s ‘The Makioka Sisters’

Éloge de l’ombre (à Junichiro Tanizaki)

 

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Biography

 

Junichiro Tanizaki (24 July 1886 – 30 July 1965)

‘Tanizaki was one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, and perhaps the most popular Japanese novelist after Natsume Sōseki. Some of his works present a rather shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions; others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family life in the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society. Frequently his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of “the West” and “Japanese tradition” are juxtaposed. The results are complex, ironic, demure, and provocative.

‘Tanizaki was born to a well-off merchant class family in the Ningyocho area of Nihonbashi, Tokyo, where his father owned a printing press, which had been established by his grandfather. In his Yōshō Jidai (Childhood Years, 1956) Tanizaki admitted to having had a pampered childhood. His family’s finances declined dramatically as he grew older until he was forced to reside in another household as a tutor. Tanizaki attended the Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University but was forced to drop out in 1911 because of his inability to pay for tuition.

‘He began his literary career in 1909. His first work, a one-act stage play, was published in a literary magazine which he helped found. In his early years Tanizaki became infatuated with the West and all things modern. In 1922 he went so far as to move to Yokohama, which had a large expatriate population, living briefly in a Western-style house and leading a decidedly bohemian lifestyle. This outlook is reflected in some of his early writings.

‘Tanizaki’s name first became widely known with the publication of the short story Shisei (The Tattooer) in 1910. In the story, a tattoo artist inscribes a giant spider on the body of a beautiful young woman. Afterwards, the woman’s beauty takes on a demonic, compelling power, in which eroticism is combined with sado-masochism. The femme-fatale is a theme repeated in many of Tanizaki’s early works, including Kirin (1910), Shonen (“The Children”, 1911), Himitsu (“The Secret,” 1911), and Akuma (“Devil”, 1912).

‘His other works published in the Taishō period include Shindo (1916) and Oni no men (1916), which are partly autobiographical. Tanizaki married in 1915, but it was an unhappy marriage and in time he encouraged a relationship between his first wife, Chiyoko, and his friend and fellow writer Sato Haruo. The psychological stress of this situation is reflected in some of his early works, including the stage play Aisureba koso (Because I Love Her, 1921) and his novel Kami to hito no aida (Between Men and the Gods, 1924). Nevertheless, even though some of Tanizaki’s writings seem to have been inspired by persons and events in his life, his works are far less autobiographical than those of most of his contemporaries in Japan.

‘He had a brief career in Japanese silent cinema working as a script writer for the Taikatsu film studio. He was a supporter of the Pure Film Movement and was instrumental in bringing modernist themes to Japanese film. He wrote the scripts for the films Amateur Club (1922) and A Serpent’s Lust (1923) (based on the story of the same title by Ueda Akinari, which was, in part, the inspiration for Mizoguchi Kenji’s 1953 masterpiece Ugetsu monogatari). Some have argued that Tanizaki’s relation to cinema is important to understanding his overall career.

‘Tanizaki’s reputation began to take off when he moved to Kyoto after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake. The loss of Tokyo’s historic buildings and neighborhoods in the quake triggered a change in his enthusiasms, as he redirected his youthful love for the imagined West and modernity into a renewed interest in Japanese aesthetics and culture, particularly the culture of the Kansai region comprising Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto. His first novel after the earthquake, and his first truly successful novel, was Chijin no ai (Naomi, 1924-25), which is a tragicomic exploration of class, sexual obsession, and cultural identity. Inspired by the Osaka dialect, he wrote Manji (Quicksand, 1928–1929), in which he explored lesbianism, among other themes. This was followed by the classic Tade kuu mushi (Some Prefer Nettles, 1928–29), which depicts the gradual self-discovery of a Tokyo man living near Osaka, in relation to Western-influenced modernization and Japanese tradition. Yoshinokuzu (Arrowroot, 1931) alludes to Bunraku and kabuki theater and other traditional forms even as it adapts a European narrative-within-a-narrative technique. His experimentation with narrative styles continued with Ashikari (The Reed Cutter, 1932), Shunkinsho (A Portrait of Shunkin, 1933), and many other works that combine traditional aesthetics with Tanizaki’s particular obsessions.

‘His renewed interest in classical Japanese literature culminated in his multiple translations into modern Japanese of the eleventh-century classic The Tale of Genji and in his masterpiece Sasameyuki (A Light Snowfall, published in English as The Makioka Sisters, 1943–1948), a detailed characterization of four daughters of a wealthy Osaka merchant family who see their way of life slipping away in the early years of World War II. The Makiokas live a remarkably cosmopolitan life, with European neighbours and friends without suffering the cultural-identity crises common to earlier Tanizaki characters.

‘After World War II Tanizaki again emerged into literary prominence, winning a host of awards, and was until his death regarded as Japan’s greatest contemporary author. He was awarded the Order of Culture by the Japanese government in 1949 and in 1964 was elected to honorary membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the first Japanese writer to be so honoured.

‘His first major post-war work was Shôshō Shigemoto no haha (Captain Shigemoto’s Mother, 1949–1950), with a moving restatement of the common Tanizaki theme of a son’s longing for his mother. The novel also introduces the issue of sexuality in old age, which would reappear in Tanizaki’s later works, such as Kagi (The Key, 1956). Kagi is a lurid psychological novel, in which an aging professor arranges for his wife to commit adultery in order to boost his own sagging sexual desires.

‘Tanizaki’s characters are often driven by obsessive erotic desires. In one of his last novels, Futen Rojin Nikki (Diary of a Mad Old Man, 1961–1962), the aged diarist is struck down by a stroke brought on by an excess of sexual excitement. He records both his past desires and his current efforts to bribe his daughter-in-law to provide sexual titilation in return for Western baubles.

‘Tanizaki died of a heart attack in Yugawara, Kanagawa, south-west of Tokyo, on 30 July 1965, shortly after celebrating his 79th birthday.’ — collaged

 

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Book

Junichiro Tanizaki In Praise of Shadows
Leete’s Island Books

‘In his delightful essay on Japanese taste Junichiro Tanizaki selects for praise all things delicate and nuanced, everything softened by shadows and the patina of age, anything understated and natural – as for example the patterns of grain in old wood, the sound of rain dripping from eaves and leaves, or washing over the footing of a stone lantern in a garden, and refreshing the moss that grows about it – and by doing so he suggests an attitude of appreciation and mindfulness, especially mindfulness of beauty, as central to life lived well.’ — AC Grayling

 

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Excerpt

What incredible pains the fancier of traditional architecture must take when he sets out to build a house in pure Japanese style, striving somehow to make electric wires, gas pipes, and water lines harmonize with the austerity of Japanese rooms—even someone who has never built a house for himself must sense this when he visits a teahouse, a restaurant, or an inn. For the solitary eccentric it is another matter, he can ignore the blessings of scientific civilization and retreat to some forsaken corner of the countryside; but a man who has a familiy and lives I the city cannot turn his back on the necessities of modern life—heating, electric lights, sanitary facilities— merely for the sake of doing things the Japanese way. The purist may rack his brain over the placement of a single telephone, hiding it behind the staircase or in a corner of the hallway, wherever he thinks it will least offend the eye. He may bury the wires rather than hang them in the garden, hide the switches in a closet or cupboard, run the cords behind a folding screen. Yet for all his ingenuity, his efforts often impress us as nervous, fussy, excessively contrived. For so accustomed are we to electric lights that the sight of a naked bulb beneath an ordinary mild glass shade seems simpler and more natural than any gratuitous attempt to hide it. Seen at dusk as one gazes out upon the countryside from the window of a train, the lonely light of a bulb under an old-fashioned shade, shining dimly from behind the white paper shoji of a thatch-roofed farmhouse, can seem positively elegant.

But the snarl and the bulk of an electric fan remain a bit out of place in a Japanese room. The ordinary householder, if he dislikes electric fans, can simply do without them. But if the family business involves the entertainment of customers in summertime, the gentleman of the house cannot afford to indulge his own tastes at the expense of others. A friend of mine, the proprietor of a Chinese restaurant called the Kairakuen, is a thoroughgoing purist in matters architectural. He deplores electric fans and long refused to have them in his restaurant, but the complaints from customers with which he was faced every summer ultimately forced him to give in.

I myself have had similar experiences. A few years ago I spent a great deal more money than I could afford to build a house. I fussed over every last fitting and fixture, and in every case encountered difficulty. There was the shoji: for aesthetic reasons I did not want to use glass, and yet paper alone would have posed problems of illumination and security. Much against my will, I decided to cover the inside with paper and the outside with glass. This required a double frame, thus raising the cost. Yet having gone to all this trouble, the effect was fair from pleasing. The outside remained no more than a glass door; while within, the mellow softness of the paper was destroyed by the glass that lay behind it. At that point I was sorry I had not just settled for glass to begin with. Yet laugh though we may when the house is someone else’s we ourselves accept defeat only after having a try at such schemes.

Then there was the problem of lighting. In recent years several fixtures designed for Japanese houses have come on the market, fixtures patterned after old floor lamps, ceiling lights, candle stands, and the like. But I simple do not care for them, and instead searched in curio shops for old lamps, which I fitted with electric light bulbs.

What most taxed my ingenuity was the heating system. No stove worthy of the name will ever look right in a Japanese room. Gas stoves burn with a terrific roar, and unless provided with a chimney, quickly bring headaches. Electric stoves, though at least free from these defects, are every bit as ugly as the rest. One solution would be to outfit the cupboards with heaters of the sort used in streetcars. Yet without the red glow of the coals, the whole mood of winter is lost and with it the pleasure of family gatherings round the fire. The best plan I could devise was to build a large sunken hearth, as in an old farmhouse. I this I installed an electric brazier, which worked well both for boiling tea water and for heating the room. Expensive it was, but at least so far as looks were concerned I counted it as one of my successes.

Having done passably well with the heating system, I was then faced with the problem of bath and toilet. My Kairakuen friend could not bear to tile the tub and bathing area, and so built his guest bath entirely of wood. Tile, of course, is infinitely more practical and economical. But when ceiling, pillars, and paneling are of fine Japanese stock, the beauty of the room is utterly destroyed when the rest is done in sparkling tile. The effect may not seem so very displeasing while everything is still new, but as the years pass, and the beauty of the grain begins to emerge on the planks and pillars, that glittering expanse of white tile comes to seem as incongruous as the proverbial bamboo grafted to wood. Still, in the bath utility can to some extent be sacrificed to good taste. In the toilet somewhat more vexatious problems arise.

Every time I am shown to an old, dimly lit, and, I would add, impeccably clean toilet in a Nara or Kyoto temple, I am impressed with the singular virtues of Japanese architecture. The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet is truly a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Natsume Sōseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, “a physiological delight” he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves.

As I have said there are certain prerequisites: a degree of dimness, absolute cleanliness, and quiet so complete one can hear the hum of a mosquito. I love to listen from such a toilet to the sound of softly falling rain, especially if it is a toilet of the Kantō region, with its long, narrow windows at floor level; there one can listen with such a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eaves and the trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones. And the toilet is the perfect place to listen to the chirping of insects or the song of the birds, to view the moon, or to enjoy any of those poignant moments that mark the change of the seasons. Here, I suspect, is where haiku poets over the ages have come by a great many of their ideas. Indeed one could with some justice claim that of all the elements of Japanese architecture, the toilet is the most aesthetic. Our forebears, making poetry of everything in their lives, transformed what by rights should be the most unsanitary room in the house into a place of unsurpassed elegance, replete with fond associations with the beauties of nature. Compared to Westerners, who regard the toilet as utterly unclean and avoid even the mention of it in polite conversation, we are far more sensible and certainly in better taste. The Japanese toilet is, I must admit, a bit inconvenient to get to in the middle of the night, set apart from the main building as it is; and in winter there is always a danger that one might catch cold. But as the poet Saitō Ryoku has said, “elegance is frigid.” Better that the place be as chilly as the out-of-doors; the steamy heat of a Western-style toilet in a hotel is the most unpleasant.

Anyone with a taste for traditional architecture must agree that the Japanese toilet is perfection. Yet whatever its virtues in a place like a temple, where the dwelling is large, the inhabitants few, and everyone helps with the cleaning, in an ordinary household it is no easy task to keep it clean. No matter how fastidious one may be or how diligently one may scrub, dirt will show, particularly on a floor of wood or tatami matting. And so here too it turns out to be more hygienic and efficient to install modern sanitary facilities—tile and a flush toilet—though at the price of destroying all affinity with “good taste” and the “beauties of nature.” That burst of light from those four white walls hardly puts one in a mood to relish Sōseki’s “physiological delight.” There is no denying the cleanliness; every nook and corner is pure white. Yet what need is there to remind us so forcefully of the issue of our own bodies. A beautiful woman, no matter how lovely her skin, would be considered indecent were she to show her bare buttocks or feet in the presence of others; and how very crude and tasteless to expose the toilet to such excessive illumination. The cleanliness of what can be seen only calls up the more clearly thoughts of what cannot be seen. In such places the distinction between the clean and the unclean is best left obscure, shrouded in a dusky haze.

Though I did install modern sanitary facilities when I built my own house, I at least avoided tiles, and had the floor done in camphor wood. To that extent I tried to create a Japanese atmosphere— but was frustrated finally by the toilet fixtures themselves. As everyone knows, flush toilets are made of pure white porcelain and have handles of sparkling metal. Were I able to have things my own way, I would much prefer fixtures—both men’s and women’s—made of wood. Wood finished in glistening black lacquer is the very best; but even unfinished wood, as it darkens and the grain grows more subtle with the years, acquires an inexplicable power to calm and sooth. The ultimate, of course, is a wooden “morning glory” urinal filled with boughs of cedar; this is a delight to look at and allows now the slightest sound. I could not afford to indulge in such extravagances. I hoped I might at least have the external fittings made to suit my own taste, and then adapt these to a standard flushing mechanism. But the custom labor would have cost so much that I had no choice but to abandon the idea. It was not that I objected to the conveniences of modern civilization, whether electric lights or heating or toilets, but I did wonder at the time why they could not be designed with a bit more consideration for our own habits and tastes.

The recent vogue for electric lamps in the style of the old standing lanterns comes, I think, from a new awareness of the softness and warmth of paper, qualities which for a time we had forgotten; it stands as evidence of our recognition that this material is far better suited than glass to the Japanese house. But no toilet fixtures or stoves that are at all tasteful have yet come on the market. A heating system like my own, an electric brazier in a sunken hearth, seems to me ideal; yet no one ventures to produce even so simple a device as this (there are, of course, those feeble electric hibachi, but they provide no more heat than an ordinary charcoal hibachi); all that can be had ready-made are those ugly Western stoves.

There are those who hold that to quibble over matters of taste in the basic necessities of life is an extravagance, that as long as a house keeps out the cold and as long as food keeps off starvation, it matters little what they look like. And indeed for even the sternest ascetic the fact remains that a snowy day is cold, and there is no denying the impulse to accept the services of a heater if it happens to be there in front of one, no matter how cruelly its inelegance may shatter the spell of the day. But it is on occasions like this that I always think how different everything would be if we in the Orient had developed our own science. Suppose for instance that we had developed our own physics and chemistry: would not the techniques and industries based on them have taken a different form, would not our myriads of everyday gadgets, our medicines, the products of our industrial art—would they not have suited our national temper better than they do? In fact our conception of physics itself, and even the principles of chemistry, would probably differ from that of Westerners; and the facts we are now taught concerning the nature and function of light, electricity, and atoms might well have presented themselves in different form.

Of course I am only indulging in idle speculation; of scientific matters I know nothing. But ha d we devised independently at least the more practical sorts of inventions, this could not have had profound influence upon the conduct of our everyday lives, and even upon government, religion, art, and business. The Orient quite conceivably could have opened up a world of technology entirely its own.

To take a trivial example near at hand: I wrote a magazine article recently comparing the writing brush with the fountain pen, and in the course of it I remarked that if the device had been invented by the ancient Chinese or Japanese it would surely have had a tufted end like our writing brush. The ink would not have been this bluish color but rather black, something like India ink, and it would have been made to seep down from the handle into the brush. And since we would have then found it inconvenient to write on Western paper, something near Japanese paper—even under mass production, if you will—would have been most in demand. Foreign ink and pen would not be as popular as they are; the talk of discarding our system of writing for Roman letters would be less noisy; people would still feel an affection for the old system. But more than that: our thought and our literature might not be imitating the West as they are, but might have pushed forward into new regions quite on their own. An insignificant little piece of writing equipment, when one thinks of it, has had a vast, almost boundless, influence on our culture.

But I know as well as anyone that these are the empty dreams of a novelist, and that having come this far we cannot turn back. I know that I am only grumbling to myself and demanding the impossible. If my complaints are taken for what they are, however, there can be no harm in considering how unlucky we have been, what losses we have suffered, in comparison with the Westerner. The Westerner has been able to move forward in ordered steps, while we have met superior civilization and have had to surrender to it, and we have had to leave a road we have followed for thousands of years. The missteps and inconveniences this has caused have, I think, been many. If we had been left alone we might not be much further now in a material way that we were five hundred years ago. Even now in the Indian and Chinese countryside life no doubt goes on much as it did when Buddha and Confucius were alive. But we would have gone only a direction that suited us. We would have gone ahead very slowly, and yet it is not impossible that we would one day have discovered our own substitute for the trolley, the radio, the airplane of today. They would have been no borrowed gadgets, they would have been the tools of our own culture, suited to us.

 

 

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p.s. Hey. The Guardian interviewed me about the UK republication of my first novel CLOSER if you’re interested. It’s here. ** Dominik, Hi!!! As I understand it, the grant committee will screen the film and interview us about it on the 24th or 25th, and they’ll decide on the 26th. So … pretty soon. Thanks for the impossibly crossed fingers! Ah, I think ‘Bullet Train’ would be greatly enhanced by your touch. And obsession is certainly the right starting place. Ha ha, thanks to love. I would definitely use those 24 hours to milk as much money out of the celebrity loving world as possible. And I’d show up everywhere with you so everyone would assume you must be a big celebrity too and you could reap the all benefits as well. Love either going back in time and making me not lose my wallet this past weekend or at least making my replacement bank card arrive extremely quickly, grr, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Excellent about the submission. When do you think you’ll hear back? It begins (again)! ** Nick., Hi. Yeah, my apartment’s too expensive, and I don’t like this neighborhood, but I am not budging. Aw, thanks for placing me among your actual friends. Right back at ya. Holy moly, awesome about the dreamy, similar, hot boy! I’m saying ‘rah rah rah’ if you can’t tell. I think maybe my top wanna get but never do at supermarkets for unknown reasons is peanut butter. Smooth. You’re already well, clearly, but do stay that way. ** Charalampos, Thanks about the interview thing. That Rimbaud translation is worth hunting. I think that book was republished finally not so long ago. It was o.o.p. for ages. I think you’ll only hear the song when you see the film. No, no trailer. No time for that yet, but I guess we’ll need to do that once it gets in a festival. I … can’t remember ever seeing a green rose. Huh. Some of the poems in ‘Idols’ are in my selected poems book, ‘The Dream Police.’ Hearty wave from similarly chilly Paris. ** Audrey, HI, Audrey. I still haven’t found ‘Bottom’, but, yes, let’s have a tete-a-tete re: it once we’ve both scored. The blog is extremely wide open if you get a post idea. It would be an honor. There’s this young writer I know whose work is very transgressive. He was busted couple of years ago for dealing drugs. During the trial, the prosecutor read from his writings, which are fairly outrageous, or at least to ‘normal’ people, and that’s what specifically led to the judge giving him the maximum sentence. He’s still in prison. It’s insane. So, yes, I’d be toast. Oh, that Amos Vogel book was important to me when I was first experiencing experimental films. Cool. I’m really glad you’re feeling better. I hope the rapid ups and downs stabilise as instantaneously as possible. How does you week look? Love, Dennis. ** Gee, Gosh, thanks, pal, Yeah, that was my puffy-eyed day. Well, thanks. I think I look older than I actually look, but I hate all photos off me, so who knows. Whoa! Huge congrats on the citizenship! Fantastic! Does that have a big immediate impact on your day to day life? That’s so great. The UK does something right! ** Steve Erickson, Hi, Steve. No, thank you again so much. I didn’t catch that dead imbed until the post was already up, but I think the description helped do the trick. Happy week’s start. You feeling better? ** Sarah, Hi, Sarah. Really nice to meet you. Thank you very much about the interview. I’m good. Finishing the film is pretty much all that’s going on with me. I can’t wait for you to be able to see it. I think I read Pinocchio as a kid. I’m pretty sure. And I think I loved it because I often think about Pincocchio, and I’m pretty sure that’s not the Disney movie’s doing. I like Lil Durk too. I’m going to see Playboy Cardi in a couple of weeks, and I’m pretty excited about that. How are you? What’s going on? Tell me more, if you like. ** l@rst, Hi, L. Oh, I actually kind of liked the twins pic. It captured their ineffability. How’s your week beginning to proceed? ** Darbs 🦕🐊🌠, Hi. Bosch is cool, for sure. I always forget that he’s Dutch, I don’t know why. Frolicking? That word makes me imagine running around whilst flapping one’s arms like a bird. If so, no, I think I have very rarely frolicked. Maybe when I used to do acid. It’s a good word. I’m going to try to start using it. Yes, I watched the moon landing in the TV room at a motel on Maui, Hawaii. I think I voted for President when I turned 18, so I think it was legal by then. I think I voted for Eldridge Cleaver, who was this imprisoned Black Panther guy. He didn’t win obviously. Oh, only first name, okay, that works. In French Dennis is Denis. So, you’re like a ghostly El Salvadorian. Pretty cool. Yeah, I think my heritage is mostly Scottish. Not bad. Enjoy the busyness and see you ASAP. ** Okay. Today I’m spotlighting a really beautiful book by the Japanese prose maestro Jun’ichirō Tanizaki to which I, duh, recommend you give your kind attention and consideration. See you tomorrow.